Roosevelt Sykes
He was a stocky, square-cut man, Roosevelt Sykes, with the genial but faintly menacing air of Edward G. Robinson. He dressed conservatively and well, smoked fat cigars or a curly pipe, and liked to eat (and cook). Altogether he seemed pleased with life and secure in his achievements. And those were considerable. In the history of blues piano no one stands more squarely in the middle of the chart, radiating lines of influence to virtually every significant pianist since.
He was born near West Helena, Arkansas, on 31 January 1906. While he was still a baby his parents moved to St Louis, but within a few years both of them had died and the seven-year-old Roosevelt was on the bus back home to his grandmother in Arkansas.
His grandfather used to preach at the local church and kept an organ at home, on which the boy quickly learned to play. Later, when some neighbours bought a piano, he had the chance to transfer his skills to a more rewarding instrument.
By the time he was in his mid-teens, (according to a 1972 Living Blues article by fellow pianist John Bentley) he was playing at some of the local joints for 50 cents to a dollar a night. `Working from Saturday evening until well after daybreak Sunday. While older competitors lurked behind the piano stool looking for any opportunity to rid themselves of the kid'.
Sykes's songs are remembered, too. Such as the evergreen NighTime Is the Right Time', or `Mistake in Life' with its opening line `I met a handsome stranger, tried to persuade her to be my wife'. Which John Lee Hooker misheard and rendered.
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`I met half a stranger...' Or `Ice Cream Freezer':
`My baby owns an ice cream freezer she lets me put my milk in her can.
Her freezer ain't to be turned by no other man.
Some people crave vanilla or strawberry but black walnut is all I love.
When I put my spoon in her freezer it fits like a rubber glove...'
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Another Sykes song was called `Dirty Mother for You'. It describes a `cute little secretary, they call her Terry - all she needs is a big DIC...tionary'. Sykes must have sung those songs hundreds, maybe thousands of times, but he never sounded bored with them, always full of gusto and good cheer. He was a pleasure to be around.
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